Newsletter

Mike Hall: Pondering the imponderable

Frequent contributor Linda Pendarvis has done it again. She has come up with a list of “imponderables,” most of which I hadn’t heard before.

I call them imponderables because that is what the dictionary says they are.

A better word, I think, would be “ponderables” because they seem created for the express purpose of getting us to ponder them.

So, get to work pondering them, and don’t feel any obligation to communicate to either Linda or me what conclusion you reached on any of them.

■ Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onetynone?

■ If four out of five people suffer from diarrhea, does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?

■ If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

■ If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

■ If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

■ If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?

■ What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men? (Actually I know the answer to this one. My driver’s license contains no listing for hair color. — MH)

■ Why do they put up pictures of criminals in the post office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

■ Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?

■ Why do we press harder on the remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?

■ Why do they use sterilized needles for lethal injections?

■ Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

■ Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

■ Why is it that, no matter what color bubble bath you use, the bubbles are always white?

■ Is there ever a day that mattresses aren’t on sale?

■ Why do people run over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it and then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?

■ How do those dead bugs get into the enclosed light fixtures?

■ Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that has falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

■ Why, in winter, do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?